Stricken
by SugarCoatedPsychosis
Summary: Grieving, stricken and losing control of his own mind, Gary returns to the one thing he can remember in his life that stayed constant. Petey/Gary, rated T for swearing and such. I'm not very good at summaries.


**Title: **Stricken Psychosis

**A/N: **Oneshot. Could turn into a long-term, I don't really know. Review, review – and, you guessed it – review! Submit as many as you like. It makes me feel important… Hehe. There are probably a few grammatical errors – I wanted it like that so that it could read more like thoughts… Eh. It was probably a fail. I left the ends untied, just in case anyone wants me to update, anyway.

And I apologise, sincerely, for the massive Author's Notes everywhere. I'm pretty strange.

**Rated: **T for sexual themes (?), swearing, (not much, but I want to be safe. Nothing worse than a bunch of sick-and-twisted pre teens scarred forever by my fanfiction, huh? Well, the answer is, of course there is, but… Agh, I'll shut up.), and – gasp – GAYNESS. Homophobes can, in the words of Family Guy's news presenter, "Go fornicate themselves with an iron stick". Okay, that may be a tad graphic (Gasp. Tad!) but hey. What can you do?

**Song(s): **The Love Cats by Tricky, Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead. (Have Radiohead played Bully? It sounds like they have… O.o IT'S TOO PERFECT. Hehe.)

(The Love Cats by Tricky)

The boy's skin is flawless, pale, virgin – unmarred by freckle or scar. His collarbone and ribs show through, rising and falling gently with every bated breath. Dark shadows play in every crevice and cleft of his body…

Gary would never tire of watching him.

Snowflakes flurry through the open window, floating very nearly weightless on the wind. He watches, hypnotized, as perfect snowflake after perfect snowflake alights and melts instantly on Peter Kowalski's skin.

He is the only thing unique in this place for miles around. Of all the humans, overrunning this place like vermin, he is the only one that stands out from the crowd, a stark contrast. He is a paradox. Peter Kowalski is an illogical state of affairs.

And, by that same token, Gary Smith has never, ever thirsted for control over one single person as strongly ever before.

The same feeling had taken him over as he endlessly tormented the therapists sent to fix him; the same feeling had ensured his admittance to Happy Volts. That same feeling has ushered his own demise and secured his doom. He detests it and is a slave to it. It has very, very nearly killed him.

But this was different. This was not just mere cruelty, brutality… It was something else; so far deep inside him he could not find the words to describe it. That was saying something – Gary Smith was never lost for words.

This boy was a contradiction. An absurdity, an inconsistency, an anomaly. That much he knew.

The cold moonlight falls in silver shafts, dancing across the room in shadows, running slivers of bitter grey greedily over Petey's bare skin…

The desire claws its way up from the pit of Gary's stomach, rippling fingers of warmth up into his throat. He hungers for that warmth.

His life is so cold now.

Always, always so cold.

It's a reminder to him. Every waking hour at that wretched, godless hellhole.

Naked but for a pair of supplied scrub slacks, he throws every window in his tiny cell open, lying sprawled on the freezing tiles, despite the changes in medication that they try and try again to fix him with. More often than not, his tears appear to freeze permanently to the floor. He is sure they join the thousands of others shed by the others that had lain alone on those cold tiles--

_No!_

_No._

He cannot waste this precious time.

He gathers the sheet around his shoulders and presses his cold lips, only briefly, to the hollow underneath Petey's chin. He breathes in his sweet soapy smell and takes his fill of warmth from the only human being he ever truly considered a friend.

And before he knows it, he realizes it's time.

He vaults through the window, back into the awful, heart-stopping cold.

But the cold cannot touch him now.

He watches, smirking, as the snowflakes take to his bare skin and melt instantly. He closes his eyes and stalks like a cat from the godforsaken Bullworth campus as swiftly and as unnoticed as he came, the sheet streaking behind him like a ghostly trail.

The wrought iron gates appear, too soon, in front of him, vast and unforgiving.

He grips the lock weakly with his left hand, glancing down momentarily, unfazed by the scars, both fresh and old, lining his wrists. He jimmies it open with warm fingers and slips through the tiny fissure in the perimeter.

(Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead)

The rend in his heart repaired for now, he is gone before anyone realizes he was there.

But Gary Smith is still a broken man.

Peter Kowalski wakes with a start, gasping for air, his hand at his throat. He sits up in bed, surfacing from the dream, shaking off the drowsiness and realization sets in.

He's not here. No one is here.

And, by the looks of things, he never was.

Inexplicable tears bloom and he blinks them away.

He kicks off the blankets and shakes his head minutely, padding over barefoot to the window. _That's odd, _he thought, yawning slightly. _I don't remember opening it last night._

He lays a palm on the sill and gasps, drawing it away swiftly. _It's warm. _Yet there is still heavy frost lining the ground and hard ice on the glass.

He looks up and just at that moment the sun breaks through the clouds, reassuring golden light falling to earth, pure and untainted.

He manages a smile, the first for a long time. It feels good.

He draws a chair over to the window and spends all morning, just sitting there, breathing the sunshine, and trying to figure out what the fuck he's supposed to do.

He's so sick of lying there, broken, tears streaking salt on his cheeks. He's so tired of trying to live.

More than anything, he hopes Gary is doing okay.

Because Petey himself sure as hell isn't.


End file.
